When Andy Elliot places a disfigured paperclip in hot water, something truly amazing happened. Before Andy places the paperclip in the water, he shows the camera for how he bends the paperclip all out of shape. Bending, twisting, and twirling the paperclip until it simply looks like a piece of string.
Now Andy places that paperclip into the bowl of hot water and like magic it transforms back into the original shape of the paper clip right before your eyes. The metal untwists and uncurls until it is exactly as it was before the clip was disfigured. The reason this can be accomplished is because this is no ordinary paperclip.
This particular paperclip is made from nitinol metal. The nitinol metal has a very unique quality about it.
This particular metal has the ability to memorize the shape that it was in when it was heated into shape at extremely high temperatures.
The nitinol metal memorizes the shape and regardless what you do to it, once placed in hot water it will twist itself back to that forged shaped. Andy goes on tho show this is not a trick by starting the timer on his phone so you can see the video is taking place in real time.
Then Andy begins to wraps the paperclip around a pencil a few times to show you it is no where near the shape of a paperclip any longer. Dipping the clip into the warm water, and as if by magic is twists itself right back into the shape of a paperclip once again.